Man killed in apartment shooting

Posted: Thursday, August 10, 2006

Police charged a west Athens man with murder for gunning down another man Tuesday night outside the suspect's apartment off West Broad Street.

Athens-Clarke police said 38-year-old Curtis Lee McCune shot and killed Carlos Armando Zaldivar at about 10:25 p.m. after the two men argued at McCune's residence at Beechwood Pines Apartments, which sits in a valley off West Broad Street behind Colonial Promenade Beechwood shopping center.

A sawed-off shotgun was found next to the victim's body, and two other guns were found inside McCune's apartment, police said.

Zaldivar, 39, of 131 Pinehurst Court was dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to his neck, police said.

The motive for the shooting was unknown as of late Wednesday morning, according to Lt. Mike McKeel of the robbery/homicide squad.

"There was an argument between the two prior to (the shooting), and what led up to that is still under investigation," McKeel said.

He said his son, who ran the Athens business Jerry McCune started years ago, McCune's Roofing, became heavily involved with drugs last summer after separating from his wife.

And on Friday, according to police reports, Zaldivar was arrested at about 12:25 a.m. by an Athens-Clarke police officer who stopped Zaldivar's weaving car on Whitehead Road and allegedly found several kinds of prescription drugs in car.

"I don't know for sure, but it's got to be drug-related, because everyday people don't act this way," said the elder McCune, who described his son as a good person who turned to drugs during a tough period in his life.

"Curtis don't act this way. It's not his usual behavior, and that's why I say it had to be tied up with drugs," Jerry McCune said.

The suspect's father, an alcoholic who's been sober 30 years, said he was trying to get his son into a rehabilitation program, and that "he talked like he was ready and willing."

Two witnesses to the shooting, McCune's secretary and another employee, said Zaldivar had made several threatening telephone calls to McCune prior to the shooting, according to Jerry McCune.

The witnesses told their employer's father that when Zaldivar showed up at McCune's apartment Tuesday night, he had a shotgun with him.

"The guy came in with a 12-gauge shotgun, threatening to kill everybody," Jerry McCune said.

McCune's employees said that after the argument, Zaldivar was leaving, but then turned in the breezeway of the third-floor apartment and appeared about to shoot McCune when the suspect fired his own gun, according to Jerry McCune.

"Curtis was afraid (Zaldivar) was going to shoot him," he said.

A sawed-off shotgun was found next to Zaldivar's body, and a revolver was found under a coffee table inside McCune's apartment, along with a rifle recovered from a closet, police said.

Police would not comment on whether drugs or other evidence was seized from the suspect's apartment. Officers found McCune and the two witnesses at the shooting scene when they arrived, police said.

Jerry McCune said the two roofing employees told him his son made the 911 call after shooting Zaldivar.

Zaldivar's death was the county's fourth homicide this year and the second within three days.

Monica Renae Simmons, 32, allegedly stabbed to death her husband, Dennis Simmons, 40, during a domestic dispute Saturday afternoon at their house on Ashmore Drive in northeastern Clarke County.

She was charged with malice murder, felony murder and aggravated assault.